Sundowner, taste of things to come
When Mighty Splendour was taken out for a stroll at the floodlit Mahalaxmi Race Course for the first time last week, she was jumpy. The 6-year-old mare had never been on the turf after dusk and stepping into the unknown wasn’t easy. The first practice run saw Mighty Splendour end up chasing her own shadow, making trainer Sandeep Manglorkar edgy about the underdog horse’s chances at the weekend’s night race, the first of its kind in India.
But on Saturday, those fears proved unfounded. The night’s feature race saw a bunch of highly-experienced horses chase Mighty Splendour’s shadow. They would all eventually give up. On a night when officials, odd-makers, punters, jockeys, ladies in hats and horses — actually the entire Race course — took a leap into the dark, Mighty Splendour sparkled the most.
“She is a temperamental horse. She isn’t used to racing under lights so it was necessary for her to get accustomed to the change. She adjusted really well,” Manglorkar said.
The triumph of the less-fancied mare wasn’t the only excitement at the races under the stars. Around the world, horse-racing under floodlights is a norm and not a novelty and as Mahalaxmi joined the big bright league, there were many smiling faces around the stand. The change in race hours seemed to have the potential to tide over the Indian horse racing’s twin problems — diminishing numbers in the stands and drop in betting revenue.
“We realised we couldn’t keep doing the same thing all the time. And something like this is what people here were starving for,” says Ram Shroff, the chairman of Night Racing Working Group of the Royal Western Indian Turf Club (RWITC).
Over the weekend, nearly half of the spectators were non-regulars, many of them families with children. The habitual punters were happy not to bunk work as they wagered after office hours.From the organisers’ point of view, it was essential to coordinate with other centres. Horse racing has a fixed, and somewhat rigid, calendar. Every major city is allotted a particular day and changes in timing can have a domino effect. “The races conducted here are beamed live at all other venues. So we had to coordinate timings in such a way that the regulars in Kolkata or Delhi or Bangalore are not affected. That was our main concern,” Shroff said.
MORE PROFITABLE
Commercially, however, Shroff said night races were more profitable. He said there was approximately a 40-45 percent increase in revenue during the night races as compared to the regular days. The experimental affair is already gaining momentum. Sponsors for the coming weekend’s races have insisted they be conducted at night.
V Harimohan Naidu, chairman of the Bangalore Turf Club, said other cities are now keen to follow the trend. But they are still cautious. “Costs will increase naturally because you have to arrange for staff to come and then the power bill also goes up. And I’m not sure if the additional income from punters will overcome those expenses in various centres,” Naidu said. “These nitty-gritties will need to be worked on to accommodate night racing in the long run. This surely wasn’t a one-off thing. Mumbai has taken a bold step and it’s a positive move.”
There was also the optimism that the quality of races too would improve. Post sunset improves performances, said jockeys and trainers, insisting that relatively cooler weather and breeze in the evening helps horses run faster. Yash Narredu, 19, one of the youngest jockeys on the circuit, predicts exciting races in the coming days.
“Once the young horses stop chasing shadows and get used to the light, things will improve. So the challenge for us was to keep them on track and make them comfortable,” Narredu, who came third in his race, said.
